A Bit on Liberty

By Fred Pruitt

..........  for myself, i think either you accept yourself in liberty, regardless of whether it seems to you that "things get addressed or done", or you do not .... we've come to the place where it really is an all or nothing proposition .... in former days we could be content with a little law "just in case" but being ONE with Him there is no law .... much much scarier .... there is no turning back ....

remember when i was out at your house and i mentioned how i had said in the car to john in california that i didn't think you could really understand buddhism without being a buddhist .... you can jab away all day at buddhist "theology" and prove it wrong by its contradiction to christian "theology" .... but it's like trying to describe the taste of an apple to somebody who has never had one .... an apple tastes like an apple and there's no possible word description that could conjure up that apple taste in your mouth unless you'd already tasted one ....

that just started a whole process with me on this "oneness" thing .... inwardly we know it to be true that we have passed from darkness into light in His death and resurrection .... we KNOW this to be true, regardless of whether we can "prove" it by any means .... we KNOW it to be true though everyone scoff at it and point out all the reasons they see why it couldn't possibly be true ....

i don't put this off on anyone else, but for myself in this "christian life" i can see now how i started off as an ascetic .... to forsake the world .... to separate myself from the world .... to have disdain for it and all its corruptions .... wanting to "keep myself pure" from any worldly influence .... i'm sure many would echo this ....

but this "in the world but not of it" thing has really caught me lately .... it means that we, as people of the Spirit, walk as Adam in paradise, in that our life is drawn from the hidden Source by Whom the worlds were created and by Whom they are upheld and sustained .... rather than being driven by need and lack and looking to the "world" for our sustenance, be it love, companionship, money, possessions, etc, peace of mind (and by world i'm even meaning my "worldly sense of myself"), we are instead driven by the superabundance of Who we are within us which is a pressing "need" to give what we have and "spend and be spent" in the doing of it .... and in that the "world" (either the world "out there" or the world "in here") is made safe for us, since it's no longer "it" for us, but us for "it" .... what i'm trying to say is that "the world" does not enter us, but "we" enter it .... we ARE the Light of the world .... there is nothing to fear ....

this is why jesus could go eat at the house of matthew and the tax collectors and whores, or even go sit at meat with the pharisees, or why he could allow a "fallen woman" to rub his feet with her hair .... HE would not be "sullied" by associating with "sinners"; it is they who would be "sullied" by being in His presence ....

being an "ascetic" of necessity makes you a pharisee .... "i'm not like those other guys" .... "i don't do that" .... but that's ok, because we have to know a thing to discard it, and in some sense we've all had to go that way through various means .... but it seems like, almost, coming back in full circle, that we are now able to go back to "the world" and love it, as it is, and without reservation be ONE with it .... (and i'm including the "worldly sense of myself" in that "it") ....

now, that's kind of high-falutin' talk for really just one simple thing: this union and being able to walk in freedom frees up the one Power that there is to do its thing, which is one and one only thing, to Love .... love cannot be given or lived from separateness .... i.e., a sense of seeing myself "better" or "apart" .... jesus came to be "us" in order to make us "Him," and now we, after knowing ourselves as Him, go out again to be "them" .... (and the "them" we see, whether "they" see it or not, is HIM, and that is what we call forth) .... like the story of Father Damien on Molokai .... he founded a leper colony and lived there amongst the lepers and got leprosy himself .... i'm sure those lepers, seeing Christ coming to them and becoming a leper just like them, enabled them to see Him in themselves in some way, through knowing His total Love and Forgiveness of their leprosy ....

years ago, janis & i went to the movies to see "terms of endearment" when it first came out, early-mid 80's .... in one part of the movie, the shirley maclaine character and the jack nicholson character go to bed together, and when that scene came on this couple in front of us huffily got up and noticeably left the theater in apparent protest of the "sin" displayed on the screen .... thus they missed the point of the movie, which was that love triumphs over all, even death and sin .... and that forgiveness is the heart of love ....

"wisdom is justified of her children" .... this simply means to me to walk as who you are, being yourself, being not afraid to touch or be touched, being intimately ONE in spirit and heart with all, seeing Christ in ALL (including ourselves -- and the "others" being of the same Person as we) regardless of appearances, affirming the Truth, then we will see that Love will triumph, even now IS triumphing, IS victorious, and that all THIS is the harmony of God's Life tuning up for the Great Symphony ....